[P @ F]

Not sure which i am lately , 18 months ago the clutch on my T4 gave signs of giving up , not bad considering i got 12 years out of it from van purchase , took it to garage and was told dual mass so £1200 sir 
No chance so traded it in for my little Fiorino , should be good for a few years , wrong !
Started it up and it gave an almighty pop , opened the bonnet to find a tar substance all over the place  , drove to garage to get told the injector seals had gone £200 should sort that mate he said , you can drive it but it needs sorting soon .
Went home and watched youtube , i will have a go at that then , £9.20 spent at GSF and 4 hours later im sorted 

Then on Friday the bloody clutch goes !!!

See my garage , £450 is the damage this time , so of course being bank holiday im thinking , i can do that , it will be hard doing it on the deck , but i can do it right ?

So i get the clutch and gear oil from Europarts for £112 and get to work , it wasnt a walk in the park , but im ready to roll in the morning ......Even though i do have arms like corned beef , and cant seem to move my head it was worth it 

Cant see me going back on the spanners anytime soon though !

Rich     

Might start brining my vans to you to be fixed!! 

Good shout Stu , kind of proves another point to Mr k.diver , you have a fleet of 4 or is it 5 now ? , yet you can see the sense in saving money on repairs , even though you turn over way more than little old me , the appeal of saved cash flow is still king !

[P @ F]

after youve been in the biz ten years theres no good reason to have an old van/truck unless youre serious underpricing  the work .    it only takes a £1 increase across your round to easily pay for something new or near new

Theres a very good reason

Depreciation

A new van is not a good investment, nor is any vehicle.

How much would you lose on say a 15k van in 10 years? about 10 grand or more.

Probably a grand a year in depreciation

once properly established ,if you cant afford to factor in a grand over a year on vehicle costs youre doing something wrong.   the truth is your van /truck is the  main  lynch pin of the business its not something to pennypinch on  . if youre not spending  a grand each year on  vehicle expense  it means youre one of those who have a tiddly arsed round

Just because you can afford to spens a grand a year on vehicle expenses doesnt mean its a wise investment. Its a waste of a grand a year.

No it really doesnt mean anything if you are not spending a grand a year on expenses, other than your van hasnt needed any work doing that year.

I fear that we are conversing with deaf ears Adam , it is becoming clear that you cannot educate pork 

[Dry Clean]

Some people cant see the wood for the trees, spend £5k on a van and get five years its still going to cost you a grand a year
even if you get 6 years from it its still coming in at around just over £800 a year, add on the extra expenses of keeping an older van on the road and you might be worse off.
The biggest problem for some when buying new is because of their poor credit rating they take out overpriced finance deals that
would make buying a cheaper used van a better option ( there's no bigger waste of money than paying interest on a loan ) but with a good credit rating and a low interest deal a new van could work out a better use of your cash than buying used.

[Stoots]

Some people cant see the wood for the trees, spend £5k on a van and get five years its still going to cost you a grand a year
even if you get 6 years from it its still coming in at around just over £800 a year, add on the extra expenses of keeping an older van on the road and you might be worse off.
The biggest problem for some when buying new is because of their poor credit rating they take out overpriced finance deals that
would make buying a cheaper used van a better option ( there's no bigger waste of money than paying interest on a loan ) but with a good credit rating and a low interest deal a new van could work out a better use of your cash than buying used.

And some people can't see the trees for the wood.

A 5k van won't depreciate to 0 in 5 years.
Vehicles do most of their depreciation early on. A 5k van might still be worth 2.5k in 5 years.

I wouldn't buy a 5k van either though.  My van as an example was 2.5k. 10 years old with 100k on the clock. If I keep it 5 years I might lose a grand on it.

Yes components are older and potentially going to fall apart quicker but it's also likely am older van has had major components replaced like cam belt, clutch etc already.

If you buy a new van an keep it 10 years it's likely you will be paying for all the major services that come along over that first 100k. So clutch, belts and and no doubt you'll want that book stamped up and not miss anything as it's a new van.

On an old van all your likely to do is give it an oil and filter change a few times.

The cheaper the van the bigger the savings. My previous van I paid 500 quid for, never even changed the oil, kept it two years all it had was  battery and a bulb. Sold it on for 375. 

Its the same with cars, in my younger years I once  bougut an mgzr. Few years later I lost 5 grand on it.

All my other cars I've had are a grand or less, amd ive had a few, maybe 20 or so..i've been lucky in they've never needed much and when they have most of the time I can do it myself. If they blow up sell them on and buy another.

[EandM]

I'm still running by older Ford Ranger as it's the most cost effective vehicle I've ever used for work. In the five years I've been driving it off road, across rivers and towing things nothing's actually broken - except a leaf spring that after 140,000 miles was worn out anyway.

It cost me £2,500 back in 2012 and weirdly its replacement cost isn't far short of that now. The modern version, which is now built by Ford, doesn't have anything like the reputation for reliability that the older Mazda versions do . It does the same job but with inherent simplicity that's missing on the new models. Everything feels over engineered and unstressed. I like that.

[P @ F]

Just realised i only had the T4 for 10 years , 5k paid in2005 , 85,000 on the clock , sold in 2015 for £1400 all it cost me bar tyres and such like was £400 for cambelt and £20 for oil cooler seals , so it cost me a massive £318 a year , and it still only had 145k on it when i sold it , good for another 100k at least !